9 comments

1. I don’t know Prof. Clark’s response to this singular/plural question, but I myself have a Very Strong reaction: avoiding gender-specific sentences is ill-considered, timid, horrid, and vague. Just say it and let the commotion fall where it may!: “his own work,” “he better be,” “his own,” his opinion.” If it is offensive to use the masculine singular form of nouns, we must be wary of speaking of mankind.

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   • Your point is well-taken! I think sometimes the singular They does avoid awkward wording. Even the Bible sometimes uses it. For example:

     “Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.”
     Deuteronomy 17:5 (KJV)

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2. Good episode, Prof. Clark. Using the correct pronouns can be quite tricky, especially if one has only a feeling of what “sounds right,” rather than a solid grasp of the rules.

   I’m curious; are you OK with the use of a singular They in examples like these?

   “Each student must complete their own work.”

   “If anyone comes to my class, they better be prepared.”

   “To each their own.”

   “Everyone is entitled to their opinion.”

   Thanks for a great series!

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   • Lim,

     My approach generally is to use the singular pronoun when it is wanted. I usually use the masculine singular pronoun generically rather than to resort to the clumsy “he or she” construction. I do not accept that, e.g., “manhole cover” excludes females. That’s just silly. Man stands for human in that case as it does in the use of “mankind.” I have sometimes used the feminine pronoun in place of the masculine when the sex is immaterial. “Firefighter” is fine in place of fireman. Mail carrier is fine in place of mailman and police officer is fine in place of policeman but I draw the line an “personhole cover.”

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     • I think you meant to say, “I do NOT accept that, e.g., “manhole cover” excludes females. That’s just silly.” Typo, but probably important to change in this situation.

       On the broader issue, your position on this is interesting. Westminster-East got a fair amount of pushback in the 1990s when one of the professors started requiring use of gender-inclusive language in student papers. I defended that policy years ago, and it was my own policy at Christian Renewal, on the grounds that “inclusive language” had long been the standard of the Associated Press Stylebook and not every battle is worth fighting. In most cases, pluralizing the sentence construction easily avoids the issue.

       Since then, the agenda on use of language has changed from feminism to GLBTQ issues. The question is no longer “can women be policemen or should be use the term ‘police officer,'” but rather whether there is an actual difference between women and men, or if “gender is assigned at birth.”

       I’m not sure I’d take the same position today that I did back in the 1990s for two reasons: 1) the AP Stylebook used to try to make standards once they’d been widely accepted rather than pushing agendas, and that’s no longer the case, so the AP Stylebook is now widely ignored by people who don’t agree with it or who just don’t care about the discipline and study needed to follow a formal set of written standards, and 2) after half a century of this since the 1960s, it’s become clear that “give an inch and they’ll take a mile” applies.

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       • Corrected.

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     • You know, I never hear anyone complain about the terms gunman, hitman, or madman!

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       • That is a really good point. I have never heard anyone argue for a gunperson, hitperson, or madperson.

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       • Interesting comments about “gunman” and “hitman.”

         The Mafia in Sicily and the Camorra in Naples are beginning to have actual female leaders of organized crime groups. The feminine terms for women of their rank and role are routinely though not exclusively used.

         A caveat is important here. The Italian language, like most languages of Latin origin, has gendered nouns and pronouns so the “pronoun wars” are less of an issue. While Italy has plenty of liberals and feminists (not always the same thing), and true male abuse of women and true patriarchy are much more serious problems in Italy, and embedded into too much of Italian culture, Italy has seen the rise of women to leadership in deeply conservative parts of the country’s social fabric, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s rise to power as head of what is probably the most right-wing government Italy has had since the end of World War II. While Meloni’s background is in a working-class part of urban Rome, similar things are happening in very traditional rural parts of Italy as well.

         This isn’t as strange as it might seem. Women have exercised “behind the scenes” leadership roles in deeply conservative and traditional societies for a very long time. In Italy, it’s being openly acknowledged by giving women official standing and titles. A century ago women would have been doing the same thing, but behind the “cover” of a very elderly husband or a very young son or some other “figurehead” while women were actually doing the job without the title.

         So yes, while most of the female “Mafiosa” are daughters or wives or widows of important male leaders who didn’t have to “rise up through the ranks” via traditional methods of violence, and instead rose by their expertise in finance or “white collar” crime, or by taking over operations of their husbands or fathers when sent to prison or after their death, we are beginning to see women holding roles that have been associated with truly awful stereotypes of male behavior.

         I’m not sure that’s progress to prove that women can be just as depraved as men.

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